As with gays and lesbians, the history of prostitutes within the Third Reich can be understood in relation to the type of threat the Nazis believed these sexual outsiders to pose. …show more content…
Although they initially opposed the reinstitution of brothels, banned in 1927, that stance slowly weakened, and in 1939 the Nazis began to re-establish state-regulated brothels. By mid-1944, they had even been established in eight major concentration camps for SS men and to reward productive prisoners. Despite many women having been sent there on account of prostitution, as Margit Feldman recalls, at Auschwitz good-looking female inmates were often taken away by camp guards and forced to serve as camp …show more content…
Whether they ever believed prostitution was as severe a threat as they once claimed, by the late 1930s they saw it as helpful, at least in regulated form. It would help combat homosexuality and interracial intercourse, and, in wartime, would raise soldiers’ morale and keep venereal disease from spreading, as brothel prostitutes would be closely monitored. The Nazis’ increasing repression of street-prostitution can also be understood within this context, as that was necessary to establish the dominance of brothels. Overall, any threat the Nazis believed prostitution as a whole to pose was mitigated by pragmatic considerations in a way that homosexuality was